The market for electronic devices, especially personal portable electronic devices, for example, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), digital cameras, and music playback devices (MP3), is very competitive. Manufacturers are constantly improving their product with each model in an attempt to cut costs and to meet production requirements.
The look and feel of personal portable electronics devices is now a key product differentiator and one of the most significant reasons that consumers choose specific models. From a business standpoint, outstanding designs (form and appearance) may increase market share and margin.
Consumers are enamored with appearance features that reflect personal style and select personal portable electronics devices for some of the same reasons that they select clothing styles, clothing colors, and fashion accessories. Consumers desire the ability to change the appearance of their portable electronics devices (cell phones, MP3 players, etc.). Plastic snap-on covers for devices such as cell phones and MP3 players can be purchased in pre-defined patterns and colors. The types of electro-optical modules that one could affix or embed in a portable electronic device to enable a changing appearance are limited by a number of factors. Portable electronic devices must be particularly thin, robust, and low power. Sales of high volume consumer products are very sensitive to consumer preferences for design, functionality, and cost. These factors produce a narrow engineering window requiring unique solutions.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus for changing the appearance of a device housing. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.